About the Center
The Center for Excellence in Healthcare Management advances Marshall University’s strategic priority of fostering innovative business thinking and measurable economic impact within the University’s Health Sciences Area of Distinction. The Center focuses on applying leadership, management, and organizational science to the grand challenges facing health care organizations in the tri‑state region of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio.
Our work emphasizes how business principles—strategy, finance, operations, organizational behavior, and leadership—can strengthen the performance, resilience, and long‑term sustainability of health care organizations operating within challenging economic, demographic, and geographic environments.
Vision
To become a leading source of research-driven insights that strengthen the leadership capacity, strategic decision‑making, and operational excellence of health care organizations in West Virginia and the surrounding region by:
- Informing the development of effective health care management policies and administrative systems.
- Enhancing the adoption and successful implementation of organizational innovations, including emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence.
- Providing a deeper understanding of the economic, managerial, and workforce dynamics that shape health care delivery in rural and underserved communities.
Activities
The Center conducts research that is:
Interdisciplinary and Practice-Oriented
Bringing together scholars and practitioners from business disciplines (e.g., management, leadership, economics, accounting, finance, information systems), as well as health professions, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and public health. We integrate organizational theory with practical, field-level insights to generate a holistic understanding of how health care organizations function and how they can improve.
Focused on Leadership, Management, and Organizational Challenges
Our work applies business and management scholarship to develop new knowledge and solutions related to:
- Strengthening and sustaining the health care workforce, including leadership development, burnout prevention, workplace culture, and organizational design.
- Improving organizational performance in rural and resource‑constrained environments, including operational efficiency, strategic planning, financial sustainability, and systems redesign.
- Addressing major service-delivery challenges—such as obesity, addiction, and aging populations—by examining how health care organizations can lead change, innovate service models, redesign care delivery processes, and manage cross-sector partnerships.
Center for Excellence in Healthcare Management Contact Information
Jeff Larson, Director, Center for Excellence in Healthcare Management; MS in Healthcare Administration Program Coordinator; Assistant Professor
Management and Health Care Administration
Marshall University
Lewis College of Business
One John Marshall Drive
Huntington, WV 25755
Office: SBUS 234
Phone: 304-696-3676
Lewis College of Business
larsonj@marshall.edu